


Dragons Live In Caves

by Prim_the_Amazing



Category: Motorcity
Genre: Dragons, Gen, Julie POV, Medieval Fantasy, POV Third Person, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 16:38:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9500396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: After a while the walls and floor and ceiling go from loosely packed dirt to stone, which Julie’s thankful for. Something a little more solid to run on. There’s something bugging her though, like it’s just at the tip of her tongue. Something she read once? Something someone told her about? Warned her about?“This must be a network of caves,” Mike says as he swiftly turns a corner.Why can’t she hear Terra chasing them? Every little sound seems to be magnified a hundred times, echoing back to them loudly, distorted.Why didn’t they follow them into the…Caves.“Mike, stop!” Julie shouts, hand reaching for him. For a moment he keeps running, her hand snatching for and missing his shirt. But then he stops so abruptly that Julie crashes right into his back. Her nose aches, and she sputters.“Dragon,” Mike breathes.Dragons live in caves.--A dragon, a princess, and a mercenary all walk into a bar.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I saw some fun dragon!Mike fantasy stuff in the Motorcity tag, so I thought I'd join in on the fun! Except with a few changes.

“Why,” Mike gasps, “are all of these people trying to kill you?” 

“Not now, Mike!” Julie snaps, because she’s not really up for lying and running for her life at the same time. She spots something out of the corner of her eye. “Hang on, I think I see something!” 

‘Something’ turns out to be a small hole in the ground, the opening barely big enough for Mike to squeeze his ridiculous shoulders through. Julie goes through first, dirt getting smeared all over her dress, and she doesn’t even care. She wriggles around until she can properly brace herself, takes Mike’s hands, and pulls. After one long moment his shoulders pop through and he practically falls the rest of the way into the tunnel, the mercenary in question being basically shaped like a sexy triangle. He falls onto her with a huff, and they take a moment to scramble in the dark to detangle themselves. 

Julie hears distant laughter and sees an arrow with green fletching hit the ground where Mike had been stuck only a moment ago with a quiet thump. (So Lady  _ Kaia’s  _ the one who figured out who she was. Her father’s going to find that information interesting.) 

Mike sees it too. “Move!” 

They crawl as fast as they can through the dirty tunnel, and soon the space widens until they can do a crouched run, and then they can stand all the way up and sprint for their damn lives. 

After a while the walls and floor and ceiling go from loosely packed dirt to stone, which Julie’s thankful for. Something a little more solid to run on. There’s something bugging her though, like it’s just at the tip of her tongue. Something she read once? Something someone told her about? Warned her about? 

“This must be a network of caves,” Mike says as he swiftly turns a corner. 

Why can’t she hear Terra chasing them? Every little sound seems to be magnified a hundred times, echoing back to them loudly, distorted. 

Why didn’t they follow them into the… 

Caves. 

“Mike, stop!” Julie shouts, hand reaching for him. For a moment he keeps running, her hand snatching for and missing his shirt. But then he stops so abruptly that Julie crashes right into his back. Her nose aches, and she sputters. 

“ _ Dragon _ ,” Mike breathes. 

Dragons live in caves. 

Julie peeks out around from behind Mike, and she sees something  _ huge _ . There seems to be some luminescent moss (there always is, or there’s crystals, or convenient torches that someone thoughtfully lit and left behind) in the cave, but it's faint. She can mostly just see a gigantic, looming silhouette. And two blue glowing eyes, vertical pupils looking. Right. At. Them. 

She stands frozen for one eternal moment, thoughts spinning faster and faster to make up for the fact that she isn’t fucking moving. If they turn around and run then it’ll be right back out into Terra’s arms. If they run forward it’ll be into a dragon’s maw. This is why they laughed, she realizes. They must not have been able to believe their luck when Julie pointed out the hole and proceeded to trap herself better than the Terra themselves ever could. They’ve always made a point of knowing every forest they operate in inside and out. They knew what waited for her down here. They must be waiting for her and Mike to come running out any moment now, crouched around the opening with their weapons drawn. No more chasing needed. 

She’s messed up so badly. 

“Back up slowly,” Mike whispers to her, so quietly that she can barely hear him. He must have decided that it’d be better to face dozens of outlaws than one dragon. At least human beings can be reasoned with. 

Julie takes one slow step back, silently agreeing with his assessment. The Terra probably just want to take her hostage so that they can make demands, not kill her. She might be able to convince them to spare Mike as well if she trades them her cooperation. A dragon would just eat her. She shudders at the thought of the dragon realizing that it had a  _ princess  _ in its layer, although admittedly one whose true identity had been hidden for her entire life. Dragons were notorious about their behavior regarding prin-- 

The dragon lets loose a low growl as Mike takes another step back. He slowly settles his hand on his sword. The growl picks up in volume. 

They can make it. They just have run until they reach the part of the tunnel that’s too small for the dragon to fit through. They can make it. 

The dragon shifts, reminding Julie vividly of a cat preparing to leap for its prey, claws out. 

They’re going to fucking die. 

“Don’t leave,” the dragon says, and Julie’s mind goes blank. It has to be the dragon who said that, because she didn’t speak and that wasn’t Mike’s voice, and it came from the dragons’ direction, and she thinks she sort of saw its huge, sharp mouth move along with the words, and the voice was  _ large _ in a strange way, and, and-- 

“Dragons can’t talk,” Mike chokes out. 

“Don’t leave,” the dragon says again, contrary to Mike’s statement and everything Julie’s ever believed. “You’re going to get the rest of the knights and kill me.” Its tail lashes behind it violently, reminding Julie of a nervous cat. It knocks a stalactite loose with one aimless sweep of its tail, debris scattering across the cave floor, a terrifying and unintentional display of strength. The dragon flinches, startled by its own destruction. 

“We’re, uh,” Mike croaks and then stops to clear his throat. “We’re not knights.” 

The dragon gives them a closer look, and Julie can’t stop herself from shrinking behind Mike a bit. She consoles herself with the thought that Mike would be shrinking if he had someone to shrink behind as well. 

“You’re wearing armor,” the dragon points out. “And a  _ sword _ .” It draws back at this observation. 

Mike hurriedly stops holding the handle, hands raising up, palms out reassuringly. Calming the creature down would probably be better for their continued survival than one measly sword anyways. 

“I’m a mercenary,” he soothes. 

“So they’ve put out a  _ bounty _ on me!” The dragon mantles its wings. “This isn’t fair! I haven’t eaten  _ anyone’s  _ livestock or even flown over any villages. I’ve only eaten wild game, and not even the stuff that lives on any lord’s land, even though it seems like they own almost all of the land that there  _ is _ .” 

“No!” bursts out of Julie, and now the dragon’s looking at  _ her _ , and Julie really, really hates herself. “There-- there isn’t a bounty on you. That I know of. I hired Mike to escort me to the capital of Deluxia. There’s a lot of miles and danger between there and where I lived, after all.” 

_ Like the people who found out who I am _ , she thinks.  _ And  _ dragons. 

“And so you felt like you had to take a shortcut through a network of caves!?” the dragon asks her testily, somehow managing to look doubtful even though it has the face of a huge, magical lizard. 

“Um, no, there’s just some people chasing us--” Mike says with his terrible honesty. 

“People!” the dragon exclaims. “How many!?” 

“Uh, a few dozen I think?” Mike answers, registering Julie’s frantic punching far too late. Damn that armor. And her tiny fists. 

The dragon lets loose a roar that almost sounds like a despairing groan. “Then  _ leave _ , and take them with you!” 

“But we’ll  _ die _ ,” Julie points out. 

The dragons stills for a moment, looking at them. Sensing the crack, seizing the opportunity, Julie continues. “They shot arrows at us! They definitely want to kill us.” 

“... What did you to do them?” the dragon asks cautiously. 

“ _ Nothing _ ,” she says firmly, and it feels good to tell the truth like this. “We didn’t do anything to them.” 

The dragon’s tail idly knocks over another stalactite as it mulls her response over. 

“... Alright then,” the dragon finally says. “If you’re not going to kill me or put out a bounty on me or gather up a mob with torches and pitchforks, then I guess I could help you out.” 

It still sounds kind of reluctant. Julie spends all of a fraction of a moment weighing pros and cons, thinking  _ I can get it replaced  _ and  _ I can say Kaia stole it out of spite  _ and  _ our lives matter more than mementos _ , and then finally  _ the castle is full of statues and paintings of her. Too full. I won’t forget her.  _

Julie digs her tiara out of her satchel waving it in the air triumphantly. It manages to sparkle even in the dim lighting, covered in gold and yellow jewels. 

Mike gapes at it. “Where did you get  _ that _ ?” he asks. 

“Present from my mother,” Julie says honestly, and he’ll probably be able to puzzle out who she is soon, but her identity’s going to go public as soon as she gets to her father anyways. She’ll be safe and sound with him. Holed up forever in the castle, watching as he denies request after request, raises the taxes again and again, passing laws only for his own gain, his only priority defeating the neighboring kingdom even though they keep sending them offers of ceasefire and peace. Nothing but complete annihilation, integration, and surrender is acceptable, Julie-bear. 

The dragon’s eyes catch on the tiara, and it seems like at least some of the stuff her father says about dragons is true. They may talk, but they’re greedy like nothing else. Its pupils dilate, and it approaches them. She can see that its scales are a slightly darker shade of blue than its eyes, up close. 

“Payment?” Julie proposes breathlessly, negotiating with a being that could swallow her whole (and there’s nothing she can do to stop it) in the blink of an eye. “You get us far away from these creeps, preferably in the direction of Capital Deluxia, and then you get this tiara, fair and square. No crimes committed. It’s business.” 

“That,” the dragon says, transfixed by the gems on the tiara, “sounds like a deal.” 

“My name’s Julie,” she says. “And this is Mike.” And she reached out a hand to shake, because you’re always supposed to shake hands when you make a deal, Julie-bear. She abruptly feels very stupid when she realizes what she’s done, but then the dragon reaches out one of its claws, and Julie carefully wraps her hand around the very tip of one of them, and numbly shakes it. A distant part of herself is laughing hysterically at what’s happening, while another is screaming. She just shook hands with a dragon. 

“Chuck,” the huge, hulking beast in front of them introduces itself. Chuck the law-abiding, business-dealing dragon that just wants to be left alone. Incredible. 

“It’s a pleasure doing business with you,” she says, and it really is. What a fucking experience.

* * *

 

The looks on the Terra members faces as Chuck bursts out of one of the many discrete cave openings in the forest that he’s made with Julie and Mike clinging to his back, whooping and hollering with glee, is something to be treasured for the rest of her life. 


End file.
